But the delight of the boy's life was still Uncle Benjamin, the poet. The two read and roamed together. Now Ben had a poetic vein in him, a small one probably inherited from his grandfather Folger, and it began to be active at this time. There were terrible stories of pirates in the air. They kindled the boy's lively imagination; they represented the large subject of retributive justice, and he resolved to devote his poetic sense to one of these alarming characters. There was a dreadful pirate by the name of Edward Teach, but commonly called "Blackbeard." He was born in Bristol, England. He became the terror of the Atlantic coast, and had many adventures off the Carolinas. He was at length captured and executed. One day little Ben came to his brother James with a paper. "James, I have been writing something, and I have come to read it to you." "What?" "Poetry." "Like Uncle Ben's?" "No; it is on Blackbeard." James thought that a very interesting subject, and prepared to listen to his poet brother. Little Ben unfolded the paper and began to read his lines, which were indeed heroic. "Come, all you jolly sailors, You all so stout and brave!" "Good!" said James. "That starts off fine." Ben continued: "Come, hearken and I'll tell you What happened on the wave." "Better yet--I like that. Why, Uncle Ben could not excel that. What next?" "Oh, 'tis of that bloody Blackbeard I'm going now to tell, And as how, by gallant Maynard, He soon was sent to _hell_, With a down, down, down, derry down!" James lifted his hands at this refrain after the old English ballad style. "Ben, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll print the verses for you, and you shall sell them on the street." The poet Arion at his coronation at Corinth could not have felt prouder than little Ben at that hour. He would be both a poet and bookseller, and his brother would be his publisher. He may have cried on Boston street: "Blackboard--broadside!" or something like that. It would have been honorable advertising. His success as a poet was instantaneous. His poem sold well. Compliments fell upon him like a sun shower. He wrote another poem of like value, and it sold "prodigiously." He thought indeed he was a great poet, and had started out on Shakespeare's primrose way to fame and glory. Alas! how many under like circumstances have been deceived. He lived to call his ballads "wretched stuff." How many who thought they were poets have lived to take the same view of their work! His second poem was called the Light-House Tragedy. It related to a recent event, and set the whole town to talking, and the admiration for the young poet was doubled. In the midst of the great sale of his poems by himself, and of all the flatteries of the town, he went for approval to his father. The result was unexpected; the rain of sunshine changed into a winter storm indeed.